Restlessness is a Gift

Today, in one of the last two episodes of this season we talk with author, activist, and spiritual director Phileena Heuertz, author of the new book Mindful Silence: The Heart of Christian Contemplation.

Phileena is the author of Pilgrimage of a Soul and a founding partner of Gravity, a Center for Contemplative Activism. For nearly twenty years she and her husband, Chris, codirected an international nonprofit in more than seventy countries, building community among victims of human trafficking, survivors of HIV and AIDS, abandoned children, and child soldiers and war brides.

Spiritual director, yoga instructor, public speaker, retreat guide, and author, Phileena is passionate about spirituality and making the world a better place. She has led contemplative retreats for a number of faith communities, including Word Made Flesh, World Vision International, and Compassion International. In addition, she is sought after as a speaker at universities, seminaries, and conferences such as Q, Catalyst, Urbana, and the Center for Action and Contemplation. Phileena was also named an “Outstanding Alumni” by Asbury University and one of Outreach magazine’s “30 Emerging Influencers Reshaping Leadership.”

This episode is the beginning of 3 guests that I know you’ll love who will close out Season 1 of otherWISE. Today we talk with O. Alan Noble about technology, truth, and bearing witness in a distracted age.

We talk about his latest book, Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age and we dive into specifics on how we can wisely speak the truth within a culture that is simultaneously mastered and blessed by technology.

Alan is assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University and cofounder and editor in chief of Christ and Pop Culture. He has written for The Atlantic, Vox, BuzzFeed, The Gospel Coalition, Christianity Today, and First Things. He is also an advisor for the AND Campaign.

We talked about the following books:

John Irving, A Prayer for Owen MeanyJohn Steinbeck, East of Eden and The Grapes of WrathWendell Berry, Hannah CoulterCormac McCarthy, The Road

Music by Austin MartinCover art by Eric Wright/Metamora Design

In this episode, Casey is flying solo sharing some thoughts he picked up while teaching with Australian College of Ministry in Sydney, NSW.

The key thoughts are about Jesus’ invitation to the Kingdom, the life we live in public, and how formation into Christ is the most compelling thing that we could ever invest our lives in.

Casey’s new book, As I Recall: Discovering The Place of Memories in Our Spiritual Lives can be pre-ordered here or pick up a copy when it releases on April 9, 2019.

Music by Austin Martin

Art by Eric Wright/Metamora Design

This week, otherWISE hosts writer and pastor John Ortberg. John is a well-known author, with books like The Life You’ve Always Wanted, The Me I Want to Be, and If You Want to Walk On Water, You Have to Get Out of the Boat.

In this episode we talk about his new book, Eternity Is Now In Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught About Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place.

John is the Senior Pastor of Menlo Church in Menlo Park, California. He and his wife, author and speaker Nancy Ortberg, live in southern California. You can find more about John here.

Music by Austin MartinCover art by Eric Wright/Metamora Design

The otherWISE podcast is back!

Our guest today is Ashley Hales, author of the new book Finding Holy in the Suburbs: Living Faithfully in the Land of Too Much that releases on October 23rd.

Ashley Hales holds a PhD in English from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. She’s a writer, speaker, the wife to a church planter in the southern California suburbs and mother to 4. Her writing has been featured in such places as The Gospel Coalition,Books & Culture, and Christianity Today. Connect with Ashley at aahales.comor on social media at @aahales. 

She also hosts the newly launched Finding Holy podcast.

Here are the books we mentioned on the podcast:

Death By Suburb, Dave Goetz

The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis

What Are People For? or Jayber Crow, Wendell Berry

Music by Austin MartinCover Design by Eric Wright/Metamora Design

Today, I wanted to talk about the way we talk to each other. Especially because our verbal communication - whether social media or actually speaking out loud - is one of the most important issues for our spiritual formation today. 

Take a listen and take some notes if you feel like it's helpful. Here are the four things I talked about that we need to consider in talking to each other:

Where is your head? 

Deep = Long

What's the win? 

But I might be wrong...

This week, we spend some time with Seth Haines author of Coming Clean: A Story of Faith, detailing Seth's journey through alcoholism to sobriety. 

Seth says he is blessed to be the husband of Amber Haines and the father of four boys. He enjoys good sentences, good music, good food, and good fly fishing.

You can also find him at A Deeper Story, where he serves as the Church channel editor. He is also a contributor to sites such as Tweetspeak Poetry, The High Calling, and In Touch.

You can find out more about Seth here 

Resources that we talked about, for further reading:

Book: The Road Back to You: An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery, Ian Morgan Cron & Suzanne Stabile

Book: Sober Mercies: How Love Caught Up With a Christian Drunk, Heather Kopp.

This week we spend time talking with Aaron Niequist, worship leader and author of the new book The Eternal Current: How a Practice-based Faith can Save us from Drowning. 

Aaron is a liturgist, writer, and pastor in the Chicago area.  After leading worship at Mars Hill Church (Grand Rapids, MI) and Willow Creek Church (Barrington, IL), he created A New Liturgy - a collection of modern liturgical worship recordings. He then curated a discipleship-focused, formational, ecumenical, practice-based community at Willow Creek called “The Practice”. Aaron recently released a book called The Eternal Current: How a Practice-based Faith can Save us from Drowning, and continues to create resources to help others flesh it out.  But that’s just job stuff.  The best part of his life is his wife Shauna, and their sons Henry and Mac.  Find more on Aaron here. 

Here are some resources we talked about as well:

Jonathan Martin's podcast Son of a Preacher Man

Annie F. Downs' podcast That Sounds Fun

Book: The Critical Journey by Janet Hagberg and Robert Gulich

Book: A Mirror to the Soul: A Christian Guide to the Enneagram, Alice Fryling

This week, we talk with Jonathan Pokluda on the LAUNCH DAY of his book, Welcome To Adulting: Navigating Faith, Friendship, Finances, and the Future. 

Jonathan “JP” Pokluda is the Campus Pastor of Watermark Community Church in Dallas, TX and leader of The Porch, the largest weekly young adult gathering of its kind in the country. At The Porch, thousands of people in their twenties and thirties hear the gospel, get equipped, and are unleashed to live out their faith.

Jonathan's passion is to share the Gospel with anyone who will listen and equip others to do the same.

He and his wife, Monica, have been married for 13 years and have three children: Presley, Finley, and Weston. You can find out more about Jonathan here. Connect with him on Twitter or Facebook

This week on the otherWISE podcast we talk with author and speaker Liz Ditty about her new book, God's Many Voices: Learning to Listen, Expectant to Hear. This book launches AUGUST 21ST so we're happy to help get the word out about an important book on hearing from God through the different stories, situations, and issues we face in life. 

Liz is part of the teaching team at Westgate Church in Silicon Valley as well as a spiritual director trained through Sustainable Faith. She and her husband live in San Jose, CA. You can find out more about Liz's writing and speaking here.